MARLYN DEL CARMEN GARCIA: Every
Inch Full of Authority
When
Marlyn del Carmen Garcia was 14 years old, a guy in the
neighborhood offered her a marijuana cigarette. She was
probably no taller than 5-foot-2. He towered over her.
But Marlyn Garcia was not one to be cowed. "She smacked
the guy," her elder sister Ingrid recalled. "She was
like, 'This is how you say no to drugs.'"
Ms. Garcia, 21, was regarded as the most brainy,
responsible and big-mouthed of the three Garcia girls.
She graduated three years ago as the valedictorian of her
class at the Bay Ridge Christian Academy and was offered
a scholarship to Syracuse University Ð but she turned
it down to be close to the family. She enrolled instead
at John Jay College. Every morning, she arrived at work
at the 101st-floor offices of Marsh & McLennan a
half-hour early, so she could leave in time for
school.
"I'm 33," Ingrid said, "and if she said, 'Sit,' I
would sit."
Ms. Garcia aspired to travel, to be an advocate for
those who could not speak for themselves, to work for the
United Nations someday. "She was a little girl who was
very powerful, very determined," Ingrid said. "We used to
call her an old woman trapped in a little girl's
body."
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